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Friday, August 28, 2009

Quaid-e-Azam Centenary 1876-1976 (August 14, 1976)

The Stamps are printed in a set of eight, the lower portion containing 4 Stamps of vertical format and the upper portion containing four stamps of almost square shape. The vertical stamps bear Quaid-1-Azam ‘s Portrait which is green in Rs. 3/- value, Brown in 50P, Blue in 40P and Mauve in 20P value stamps. The Quaid-I-Azam’s Mausoleum, ‘Minar Qarardad - e - Pakistan, Sind Madressah and Wazir Mansion have been shown in back-ground of Rs. 3/- 50P, 40P arid 20P value stamps respectively. In the bottom words ‘Pakistan” in Urdu and English appear in Red in Rs 3/- and 40P stamps while in 50P and 20P stamps these words are in Blue colour. -The denomination figure with the word “Postage” under-neath appears in Black in the bottom right corner of each stamp. The wordings “Quaid-i-Azam Centenary 1976” appears in black in two lines at top of each stamps.

DESCRIPTION OF SMALLER (HORIZONTAL) STAMPS : The upper four stamps have hexagon shaped motif in the centre with decorative corners around. The wordings in Urdu appear in Black at centre of hexagon’ Word “ Pakistan “ in Urdu and English appear in Black iii the bottom right and left corners of the stamps while the word “Postage” and year “1976” are on the top left and right corners respectively. The denominations Re. 1/-, 15P, 10P and 5P are printed in black in the lower portion of motif of Green, Mauve, Orange, and Blue colours respectively. The corners are blue in Re, 1/- stamps, Bluish Mauve in 15P, and in l0P aid 5P stamps these are Red and Green respectively.

Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah the founder of Pakistan, invites comparison with some of the greatest names, in modern times; Washington, Bismarck, Cavour, Garibaldi, Lenin, Ataturk. Yet in the galaxy of nation -builders, Jinnah holds a unique position, at least in one sense. While others assumed the leadership of traditionally well-defined nations and led them to freedom, he created a nation out of an inchoate and backward minority, and established a cultural and national home for it. And all that within a decade,

Born on 25 December-1876 in a prominent mercantile family of Karachi and educated at Sind Madressah-tul Islam and the Mission School, he joined the Lincoln’s Inn in 1892 from where he was called to the bar three years later. Starting out in the legal profession with nothing to fall back upon except his native ability and determination, young Jinnah became Bombay’s most successful lawyer, within a few years.Once he was firmly established in his profession Jinnah entered politics in 1906 from the platform of the Indian National Congress. Four years later, in 1910, he was elected to the newly constituted Imperial Legislative Council. All through his parliamentary career which spanned some three decades, his was probably the most powerful voice in the cause of Indian rights.

For about two decades since his entry into politics in 1906, Jinnah was a confirmed nationalist. Gokhole, the foremost Hindu leader before Gandhi, had once said of thin, “He has true stuff in him and that freedom from all sectarian prejudice which will make him the best ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity” And, to he sure, he did become the architect of Hindu-Muslim unity: he was responsible for the Congress League pact of 1916-the only pact ever signed between the two organizations which represented the two major communities of the subcontinent. Thus by 1917 Jinnah had established his reputation as one of the most outstanding and highly respected political leaders of India. He was not only prominent in the Congress and the Imperial Legislative Council, he was at the same time the president of the Muslim League and the Bombay Branch of the Home Rule League.

A Constitutionalist to the marrow of his bones, Jinnah believed in evolutionary methods and detested the use of violence in politics. He was averse to rousing the masses through emotional appeals and told Gandhi at the Nagpur session of the Congress in December 1920. “Your way is the wrong way, mine is the right way— the constitutional way is the right way”.

Although Jinnah left the Congress soon after, he continued his efforts towards bringing about Hindu -Muslim. entente which he rightly considered “the most vital condition of Swaraj”. However, because of the deep distrust between the two communities as. evidenced by the countrywide communal riots and because the Hindus failed to meet the genuine demands of the Muslims, his efforts came to naught. The Nehru Report (1928) which negative the minimum Muslim demands embodied in the Delhi ‘Muslim Proposals of 1927. proved to be the last straw. It meant “the parting of the ways” for him, as he confessed to a Parsee friend at the time. Jinnah’s disillusionment at the course of politics is the subcontinent prompted him to settle down in London in the early thirties. He was, however, to return to India in early 1934 at the pleadings of his co-religio-nists, and assume their leadership, . He now began organizing the Muslims on one platform : not only. did he reorganize the Muslim League as a mass organization, with a concrete and progressive political programme and a flag of its own, but .he also undertook countrywide tours to reach the League message to the remotest corner in the subcontinent. The policy of the Congress which took office in July 1937 in seven out of eleven provinces. convinced the. Muslims, that in the Congress scheme of things, they could live only at sufferance and as “second .(I~5.s” citizens. The Congress governments, it may be remembered. had embarked upon a policy and program in which the Muslims did not feel their religion, language and culture safe.

When Jinnah took up the leadership of the Muslims in 1936, they were a mass of disgruntled and demoralized men and women, politically disorganized and destitute of a clear-cut political programme. And yet within three brief years he had, awakened the listless Muslims to new consciousness, organized them on one platform, and had given coherence, direction and expression to their innermost, yet vague urges and aspirations. In addition he filled them with his own indomitable will his own undying faith in their destiny. From a mere rabble, he made them into a nation-united, strong and self-concious.

Presently, Muslims consciousness was stirred to a new pitch, and a hundred million Muslims, who were till then dismissed as a backward .minority, discovered, under Jinnah’s aspiration, their soul and destiny.

In discovering the fact of Muslim nationhood f Jinnah had formu1ated the intellectual justification for launching the demand for a Muslim homeland in the Muslim majority areas of The’ subcontinent. This demand he formally launched in 1940.

Yet, as is well known to any student of history, there is many a hurdle between the perception of an idea and its consummation. And hurdles’ almost insuperable hurdles, he did encounter at every stage. That he did surmount them may be attributed to quote Dr. Sachhidanand Sinha, to his “deep-rooted strength of conviction, his indomitable courage, political tact and tenacity of purpose.

Jinnah devoted the last years of his life, in consolidating Pakistan and in securing her survival in un easy, treacherous circumstances.

In accomplishing this task, tremendous as it was, he worked himself to death. “How true was Pethick Lawrence the last Secretary of State for India, when he said “Gandhi died by the hands of an assassin: Jinnah died by his devotion to Pakistan.

No wonder, the nation remembers him with gratitude and his memory is as fresh as ever today in the minds of 65 million Pakistanis.